Chelan law enforcement trouble

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The NMA just gotten the word that the Chelan County ORV deputies (and most likely some of the very ORV unfriendly USFS law enforcement personnel, a.k.a. the infamous Larry Int-Hout with his fetish for ticketing street licensed dual-sport bikes with plastic gas tanks, will be on the loose again in the Chelan County, Entiat River and Foggy Dew areas trolling for your hard earned dollars. It sounds like there will be particularly heavy enforcement and ticketing of riders on KTMs because dealers can sell them with a WA license plate without requiring DOT approved and so marked, lights, tires, turn signals, brake lights, horns, etc. These deputies are now apparently very educated as to the intricacies of extracting dollars from your pocket book utilizing the finer details of the motor vehicle equipment laws. This news is especially important if you plan to ride the Dirty-Face dual sport event in that area in June!

It is important to realize that USFS law enforcement tickets are almost impossible to take to court unless you are very wealthy! Larry Int-Hout, your unfriendly USFS law enforcement agent in that area, apparently knows that and appears to have no problem writing tickets for plastic gas tanks on dual-sport motorcycles even though they are perfectly legal to the best of our knowledge. Have you crawled under your car lately and looked at the plastic gas tank under there? No? Well apparently Larry hasn't either based on the number of complaints we have gotten via email about him writing tickets for that. Yes, it is rumored that you can contest your ticket in Federal Court (Yakima?) with one drive over there for a hearing to set a court date (no you can't do it by phone or mail, only in person) with a return visit for the actual court date. Of course that did not even work for one person we know. In that case, the US Government never even answered a letter from a lawyer asking for a court date. They just took the money via their pocket picking machine somewhere in Georgia and would never respond to the lawyer! How's that for Constitutional Due Process of Law?!!! Oh yeah, we have also heard the USFS will (at least plastic gas tank Larry) have no problem searching your four wheeled vehicle even if you adamantly tell him he has no right to do so. This happened to a person we know who had a dirt bike in the back of his truck and was not operating either vehicle when Plastic Gas Tank Larry showed up! He just happened to be parked on PUBLIC (USFS) land! Anything he finds will of course subject you to the same Federal Court process described above or worse. Rights? What rights? The USFS may even have the legal right (Constitutional is another matter!) to search your vehicle at any time if it is parked on PUBLIC (USFS) land from unconfirmed reports of recently released USFS regulations that we are hearing about. Oh yes, of course you need a special USFS parking permit to park within 1/4 mile of anything they might classify as a Trail Head.

Yes, your Nonhighway & Off Road Vehicle Activities (NOVA) dollars are being spent to support these activities under the guise of the "Education and Enforcement" grants the InterAgency Committee for Outdoor Recreation (IAC), supported by the WTA (rabid hikers) loves to spend your gas tax money to support. Nice to see how your tax dollars work for you isn't it? I am sure that receiving a ticket on a dirt logging road for non-DOT approved equipment will make you feel much safer, right? Especially nice since you spent $65 for that WA license plate instead of $8 for an ORV tag isn't it?

Oh yes, do not forget the Speed Limit which is apparently 35 mph on all unmarked USFS roads. No speed limits yet on the trails as far as we know. However, one of us was at a meeting recently where a deputy from that area made statements to the effect that he believed he could write tickets for "excessive speed" or "reckless operation" of a motor vehicle on a trail. He was actually quite upset about some of the speeds he had heard about, which the riders obviously survived, on the trails in "his area." Yes, the four wheeled law enforcement vehicles are usually equipped with video and audio so everything you do and say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Okay, you have been warned! The Sheriff of Nottingham is on the loose north and south of Lake Chelan and Robin Hood has not yet appeared on the scene. Similar plans to pick your pockets may also be in the plans for your other Public Land riding areas and we just haven't heard about it yet.

PS - ATV riders! Want to be treated as if your were Osama Bin Laden's right hand man? Just get caught with a quad on a logging road by Plastic Gas Tank Larry!
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My dad had a number of stories from the 40's and 50's about unpopular enforcement officers having little accidents, guess that is construed as not cricket i.e politically incorrect these days, in the Navy we called them "Blanket Parties" where the unfortunate had a blanket thrown over them and became a boxing and kick bag - a rare occurance, the very unfortunates and extremely rare that I only heard about were lost at sea, maybe a little drastic. Whatever, no two ways about it this guy is outa line and is usurping the intent of the laws. Guess the only avenue is complain till we're blue in face - more power to our lobbying groups!!! One of the guys I sub-contract for would site this as "Another glaring example of the wimpification of America". Right now, nationwide, the agencies (USFS, BLM) are in comprehensive planning on OHV use - see Okies Forest service post, get vocal and aggressive in this planning stage, it's all we can do.

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